by Tim Vine
‘Listen, friend.’ Mr Ketchup lowered his voice conspiratorially while leaning forward a little. ‘If it’s put anywhere near your food, you can get nasty seepage or cross-contamination. It can be dangerous, you mark my words, it can be very dangerous.’ Mr Ketchup straightened himself up all of a sudden. His face relaxed, revealing deep furrows around his taut mouth. ‘Well, great to meet you, friend. Don’t forget!’ And with that he turned and marched away, leaving Mark wincing from some particularly rank fallout in the surrounding atmosphere from his meaty breath.
Mark also witnessed a line of weedy ill-kempt men shuffling pathetically along in a line to receive their medication at what looked like an ice-cream van window. One of them, with a horrible beard and a stripy T-shirt, had a tattoo on his forearm stating Only God Can Judge Me. The rosary decoration surrounding it didn’t improve it in any way. He was almost squealing at the male nurse behind the grill, ‘Haven’t you got any damn Q-Tips? I’m sure I had some about fifteen years ago, but I can’t remember where they are! God dammit!’
Will had lucidly explained that, although it all looked fairly regulated and they had to pop it back or drink it in front of a nurse, the medication was somehow regularly stashed away and traded between the patients. Lots of these already fragile people were often ingesting and swallowing alarmingly bizarre cocktails of antipsychotic drugs about which they had no idea, which often weren’t even destined for them. How anybody could ever actually improve and get better in such a place was baffling Mark, and as he drifted around he felt as if he had become yet another player on the stage that was the ward, feeling surreally not connected to Real Life. The spirit of the place was clearly rubbing off on him, and he wondered ruefully how long some of the patients (or were they inmates?) had been there.
He heard random snapshots of conversation throughout the afternoon, and, although fascinating, the madness was exhausting:
‘. . . and then the girl said that I wasn’t in Poundland, I was in Poundworld, and that Poundland was over the other side, but that I had nothing to worry about because prices were generally very similar . . . but if they had a 10% sale would it become the 90p shop?’
And, in a very posh deep voice, ‘. . . so the late-night randoms were all there (including yours truly), a large cast including the usual small-fry drug pushers, a racist homosexual, and a 68-year-old gran who I very nearly took home to my bed . . . all a little off their faces, of course, if that’s possible . . . well, in fact I suppose being off your face has to be by its very nature an all-consuming state but . . . ’
And: ‘. . . and the crab omelette, fuck me, it was nothing like the bleedin’ picture . . . all chive garnish, givin’ it all the tomato salad this ‘n’ that on the side with the juicy crab meat bursting out of the side. Nah, it was like a fackin’ flat pancake with a bit of tinned fackin’ crab wetting up the side. Shit. He said I could take it up with the chef if I wanted. ‘Is he big?’ I asked him. ‘No, he’s small,’ was the reply . . .’
There were more, although many were silent: ‘How I haven’t been sent down is one enormous mystery to me, but it must be down to a good accent and the ability to scrub up well. Clean-shaven and sporting cufflinks, expensive polished shoes and ironed shirts, one can fool lots of people a lot of the time . . .’
‘. . . don’t do it, no, not now, no please! You can’t. Don’t do it, I beg you, there’s no need, no . . ! You remind me of my tortoise that went into hibernation but never came out again. Then I was annoyed with my mother because I was away, and she’d gone and buried the damn thing and wouldn’t tell me where, but I’d wanted to use the shell as an ashtray!’
‘. . . she asked me to move the Head and Shoulders out of view in the bathroom, saying that everyone would know that I’ve got dandruff. I told her no, cos everyone will know that I haven’t got dandruff because I use Head and Shoulders!’ and ‘. . . yeah, and him and the Mrs hadn’t had sex for two years, they go to Glastonbury and do a pill, get jiggy in the tent only to end up with a second kid out of the blue!’
‘. . . so we’re in this shabby but incredible French château talking politics with the oysters and champagne, literature with the rare lamb, cheese with the cheese, then the irony and difficulty of spending one’s existence in permanent debt with the strawberries. All conversation and food of course washed down with exquisite Bordeaux from a decanter, while outside monsters masquerading as fish were devouring everything that their google-eyes spotted in the murky moat which surrounded the place. The batty owner, an aging German-French widow of a famous writer from the 80s, still offering her recovering alcoholic daughter wine – jeez – ‘just a drop to be convivial,’ she’d say. And the daughter, still clearly fragile many years later, replying wearily as if this was a well-rehearsed act, ‘Mother, you still appear to forget that I was a drug addict from the age of 15 to 21, and then an alcoholic to the age of 30, and still . . . ,’ and the mother would just laugh. But the peppermill, what an item! A grossly phallic brass and frankly ugly object from Delphi, Greece, weighty at that . . .’
He had to snap out of this frame of mind, or he would simply become one of them, merging in, perhaps eventually finding a bed to sleep in, then robotically getting up to queue up at the kiosk window for his drugs, ready to start the day with all the others . . .
Afternoon tea had been served out of a slightly chipped oddly-patterned cup and saucer that reminded Mark of village halls. Will was convinced that there were turquoise patches of mould on the sponge cakes, and that the milk had ‘turned’, neither of which were true as far as Mark could tell. He didn’t eat or drink, having decided to talk at length, seizing the moment to recount tales about his sexual exploits with a polyphrenic girl who he would regularly meet on a moss-covered roof near the kitchen area. If she had on that particular day assumed her persona of Scary Donna, then she would hiss abuse at him, often being fairly spiteful and aggressive. She explained that she had been raped, had indulged in several threesomes and loved recreational drugs, also that she had attempted suicide on a number of occasions, most recently by locking herself inside a refrigeration truck full of eerie dangling meat carcasses. Having been discovered many hours later by the shocked driver, barely managing to cling onto life, she had become known as Donna the Fridge Magnet. When she was Donna, Will would humour her but not hang around for too long as her venomous insults had often been known to make him cry if he was having a fragile day. However, if she was indulging her Roxy persona, then very few words would pass between them, she would be all over him and they would enjoy dirty and sometimes curious sex. He found her intensely gorgeous, being especially drawn to the train tracks on her teeth and her slightly boss-eyed glare, so she was like a lamb to the slaughter. She remained biscuit-thin, whoever she was, and had a problem telling the truth. A biscuit hadn’t passed her lips in several years. There were a couple of other occasions when they had met around the grounds by chance, and she had appeared to not recognise him at all. She was a hard one to crack, that’s for sure, a fully fucked-up bunny. One day she had hit him pretty hard on the skull with a hairdryer in an attack that neither of them could fully understand afterwards. All of this presumably meant that there were other characters inside her head too, and not all of them had yet encountered Will. He was never sure if he ever found out her real name . . .
‘But you see, life can be a like bowl of cherries, even with a cherry on top . . . I even get laid in a place like this!’ Will exclaimed, flapping his arms around at the surrounding building. Some heads turned, only to look away.
‘Yeah, it’s not all bad,’ agreed Mark, encouragingly. ‘We’ve all got our own problems, in here or out in the ‘normal’ world. I mean, for instance, I’ve got an ugly big toe.’
‘Well, yeah, you’re right. You know, my cat’s got bad breath, really something,’ added Will.
‘My cousin’s got AIDS, and I like to talk to my banana tree.’
‘Well . . . my m
other never speaks to me.’
The game continued. Mark’s turn.
‘I bought Philosophy for Dummies recently and haven’t opened it yet. Who buys that?! Hold on, worse still, I had skid marks in my boxer shorts last week!’
‘I get nervous in crowds,’ replied Will after laughing briskly.
Mark: ‘I’m rubbish at spelling and I can’t stand dirty cutlery.’
Now Will decided to up the challenge. ‘I have a recurring dream; I think it’s really a fantasy of mine. I end up raping a chicken, and the chicken actually starts to enjoy it!’
‘Jeez, are you normal or paranormal? Ok, well, you’ve got me there!’ Mark conceded, grinning broadly.
Will also described a doctor who he had been seeing every Monday morning, and it all sounded rather odd. A certain Dr Watson who suffered from severe eczema and so wore white cotton gloves at all times as if she was at an early 90s acid rave. Her billowing Paisley-print Laura Ashley dresses confused the whole image, conjuring visions of a country mum. It seemed that it didn’t really help seeing a psychiatric consultant who was like a freaky extra from the summer rave posse when you’re trying to get better.
Following the incident with the fire alarm, Mark wasn’t bothered about staying, but still he sad for Will, combined with a sensation of unreality and distortion of the world, the latter having presumably stemmed from spending a large part of the day in the company of nutters. Such depersonalization was certainly not a feeling he enjoyed, so he tried to clear his head on the stroll back to the station, wishing that he still smoked as it would have been the ideal moment to spark up. On the drearily slow train ride back to London, he forced his mind to think of his forthcoming holidays, and other pleasant thoughts.
Despite his distinctly upbeat frame of mind, Will found his mood shift as the road signs to the prison threatened that the gig venue was soon approaching. It was a deep and ingrained dark fear of institutions that rattled him, and was now understandably starting to get the better of him. The distinct uneasiness that he had tried to push away during the trip was now starting to creep up on him, and a slight clamminess on his hands with an all-too-familiar tightening of his stomach was beginning to make this whole venture seem like a terrible idea after all. The additional factor of being locked in took him back years to a place that he’d rather forget – unwelcome grim memories of the mental hospital that it would undoubtedly stir – making his heart beat louder and his breath shorten. One of his back teeth ached. He reminded himself that this was exactly one of those milestones that his psychiatrist had actively encouraged him to face head-on, and so he had bravely taken the bull by the horns when Dave first told him about this series of gigs, almost looking forward to the challenge. Now, though, that it had actually come about, he was clearly not enjoying the reality, but was determined to put his head down and get through it.
Peter Pilgrim mumbled to himself urgently and precisely, ‘The healing and helping power of our Lord will guide and strengthen you. Don’t fight your Destiny. We are all put on this Earth to help each other at different points in our lives, all stages in the Journey, and I know that I am here now for a reason – Jesus told me himself.’ He was his own best friend, and seldom let anyone else in, so often found himself talking to himself. Peter noticed, as his thin lips trembled, that the carrots outside looked like they would soon need lifting, but maybe he’d give them another few days. As he surveyed this unremarkable morning, he noted again that the garden seemed fairly scrappy, expect the immaculate vegetable patch, which he tended regularly. This season’s veggies were looking particularly healthy, which Peter attributed to his prayers for a bountiful crop and his yearly thanks and praise to God, especially around the time of Harvest Festival. Dark-leafed cabbages nestled alongside waywardly springing leeks, as parsnips, carrots and potatoes sensibly bordered the tidy and weed-free plot. He had always lived here, having been born and raised in this unexceptional house, which was his late parent’s bungalow. Located on the outskirts of Aldershot, they had named it RonJoyce, and after they had both died Peter couldn’t bring himself to change the name. It was the name of this little piece of England and should never be altered, that’s just how it is. Not so much as a sniff of the concept of good taste had ever crossed the butterfly-design garden gate, and Ron Pilgrim’s pebble-dash effect on the façade – lovingly added some twenty years ago – was now crumbling miserably, as was Joyce Pilgrim’s yellow peeling wallpaper in the downstairs lavatory. He could almost see his dad, Ron, all dandruff and polished shoes, sat in his favourite chair with the newspaper, sometimes coughing or asking Joyce to bring him a cup of tea. Still, Peter loved the little house with all its faults – even the unidentifiable pungent aroma that for some mysterious reason always lingered in the tired kitchen, and his Father’s words rang in his ears every time he stepped out of the olive-green front door to leave:
‘Son, be good, and if you can’t be good, be careful!’
Peter considered himself to be always good. In fact, he had made being good his entire lifetime’s mission, devoting himself to God. This had become his raison d’être, especially over the last few years, and it had substantial and life-altering consequences. An insistence in spreading the Gospel relentlessly at any opportunity, particularly at work, had at first distanced but then scared off his fellow workers and finally his employers. Several warnings followed, at first gentle but gradually becoming more severe as his behaviour continued unchanging, and the inevitable eventually unfolded one bitterly cold February. It appeared that nearly ten years of duty at the pork pie factory counted for nothing, even after taking into account his almost religious zeal for the job at hand, coupled with a fanatical penchant for time-keeping. He felt like he’d been tossed out mercilessly with the waste after he was sacked, and the redundancy pay-out had been laughably derisory, a pittance that added insult to injury. Since the dismissal, Peter had picked up casual odd bits of gardening work, normally just about enough to support his fairly frugal existence. He enjoyed sitting around with a Cup-a-Soup (always the Minestrone with croutons), too much TV and playing chess against the computer. Not going out much, and not having friends as such, he spent a lot of his time with his dog Elvis, his only real companion. Elvis would sleep in Peter’s bed, share the sofa with him, and made RonJoyce smell like a commercial boarding kennels complex on a hot day that was in urgent need of a hose-down. If Peter noticed, he certainly didn’t let it bother him, and there was no one else around to complain. Once Elvis had nearly died, and Peter really had a fright. They never figured out what had caused the dog’s intense sickness, which finally lifted after a week. Late one Friday night, a group of pissed-up lads were on their way home after an evening of boozing when one of them hurled up over the fence into the corner of RonJoyce’s garden. Elvis greedily gobbled up the cold vomit early on Saturday morning when Peter let him out, before being stricken with a debilitating sickness that left him shaking for days, at ‘death’s door’ according to Mr Halford the local vet. Peter would have been distraught if . . .
Yes, Peter was a loner and a misfit, and being a little bit odd was one of the things that he did best. He was the kind of guy who would get short-changed and not notice, or piss on his light-coloured slacks before walking out into a crowded room with dark marks down his leg. He couldn’t even light a fire lighter, let alone start a fire. Groups of girls would whisper to each other before bursting into laughter around him. Once, at the annual Christmas work outing – this particular year at a Chinese restaurant – Peter had innocently drunk the dainty bowl of citrus-infused water that had come to the table for rinsing hands.
‘Aaaahhhh,’ he sighed, satiated, his workmates looking on, incredulous. ‘That was delicious . . . nice and lemony.’ He became, even more so, the object of ridicule back at the factory, which only accentuated his sense of isolation. When it came to factory tea breaks, he would cringe as someone would nearly always loudly ask him,
�
�Hey, Peter. How about a nice cup of hot lemon?’
Peter had endured a similar shameful humiliation when, years before, he had attended the funeral of a distant cousin in Cornwall. He had decided to book into a B&B for the night as the wake was due to last into the evening, so he planned to enjoy a much-needed mini-break from the pork pie factory. After being ushered into the breakfast room the following morning by the obsequious proprietor, he found a place with several fellow guests at a large table.
‘And how would you like your eggs, sir?’ he was asked.
Peter replied, to the ill-hidden amusement of many, ‘Well done, please.’ He had been too embarrassed to ever tell anybody this tale, and his egg intake since (poached, fried, scrambled or boiled) lowered considerably after this.
Rudely the phone would periodically shatter the usual peace and quiet of the bungalow, nearly always either someone attempting to sell something undoubtedly useless, or a mumbled apology for a wrong number. Peter sometimes wondered why he bothered paying for a phone line when these were the only calls he received. He never felt completely normal in himself when ambling around the town, especially on seeing carefree couples or laughing families out and about, apparently enjoying themselves. While desperately trying to fit in socially somewhere, he had at one stage attempted to hang out in a couple of local pubs, even drinking, but that had backfired. He was soon to discover that he would generally find himself ignored by most except perhaps the most hardened drinkers propping up the bar, who were intrigued by this strange and uncomfortable new arrival invading their space. Sometimes he might find himself sitting awkwardly at a table with a few people, but made a fool of himself in most cases. Like the time he managed to bore a young couple with details of his extensive teapot collection, a hobby and a passion that he had inherited from his beloved Uncle Eric.
The Albion had unfortunately long passed its glory days as a classic drinking haunt with an inviting rustic and womb-like feel, and as far as the décor was concerned, crimes against decency had sadly been committed in the name of modernity. The most unacceptable sacrilege had been the ruthless scrapping of the 18th century oak bar in order to install a clean and straight trendy bar area. The name had been changed to The Lion & Lobster, after 200 years or so as The Albion. A misjudged and overly-bright lighting design combined with a shoddily cheap refit gave the formerly welcoming Public House the feel of a second-rate furniture showroom. The atmosphere was that of a public library rather than a pub . . . not even an exciting library, some of which are known to fizzle with sexual tension! Obligatory sensible fire-exit signs screamed uncomfortably from every wall. There was not a pork scratching (with or without hairs still attached) or pie in sight, as the standard fare of yesteryear had been relegated to history. Interesting and unusual old-fashioned ales from niche British breweries had made way for garishly lit-up pumps of EU-manufactured chemical-rich lagers, and ashtrays now made way for bowls of olives, posh crisps or Japanese snacks. The pub had suffered an attack of affluenza, and now attempted to scrape some profit from its menu, serving pretentious offerings such as Pan-seared Partridge with a Prune Jus, served on a bed of Seasonal Greens, or Line-Fished Pacific Halibut, Lentils, Scallions, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes, with a Lemon Feta Vinaigrette. The bar staff were impossibly young and – while attempting desperately to be hip – apparently fresh from some kind of cheap fashion TV makeover. All this in Aldershot, of all places!